


Fins and Fangs

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mermaids, Bad Flirting, Corporate Espionage, M/M, Mentioned Background OC Death, Mermaid Claire Temple, Mermaid Matt Murdock, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22794547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: Foggy Nelson, after getting roped into investigating some shady dealings with a shady new client at L&Z, finds his co-conspirator dead in her office, and consequently spends five weeks recuperating on a private beach.Oh, yeah, and he also meets a weird merman with a penchant for punching shark poachers.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 111
Kudos: 207





	1. Up From the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> I was planning on finishing the last two chapters of The Devil's Hangin' 'Round My Doorstep before posting anything new, but... This has been waiting a while, so I'm just gonna give it to you guys now.

The sky is gray, and the sea is grayer, Foggy notes as he stares out the window of the cabin. Not enough so to be a warning of an oncoming storm, but enough to know that it’ll be chilly. He takes a slow sip of steaming coffee from the mug in his hands and watches the waves lap against the shoreline.

It’s a week into his impromptu five-week ‘vacation’. Because apparently that’s what the bigwigs call it when you get so hysterical about finding Jeannie from Billing hanging from her ceiling fan by a makeshift noose that you need to be given time off.

Foggy sighs loudly, scrubs a hand down his face as if it’ll scrub away the image of her dangling there, lifeless. He drinks more coffee.

Marci, whose cousin owned a small beachside property and the small beach on which it resided, had suggested the getaway for Foggy’s mandated time off. And he’s... Not doing great, exactly, because, uh, he’d found one of his coworkers dead in her office, and that’s just not something you get over after a week. But the isolation and the water and the distance from L&Z’s soul-sucking miasma are definitely helping in at least some small way. Maybe.

Foggy sighs again, sweeps his gaze across the beach again. Gray, gray, gr—

He chokes. Sets his mug down hard on the counter. There, off to the left — just past the stubby boulder Foggy had sat on to read the second day when the sun actually peeked through the clouds for a couple hours — the sand is choked red with blood.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Foggy manages, slightly strangled. “Fuck!”

Then he’s running down the beach, his bare feet slapping unevenly in the rough sand. It might be the fastest he’s ever moved in his life. The bleeding guy, because it’s definitely a human person, is sprawled — on his back, at least, so he’s not getting asphyxiated by sand, thank goodness — half in and half out of the water. His chest is bare and riddled with small cuts. There’s a massive gouge in his right bicep, big and ugly like someone went at him with a harpoon or something.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Foggy says to keep himself from upchucking his breakfast on the spot.

At close range, he can tell that Bleeding Guy is at least still breathing, which, thank god because Foggy is _so over_ finding dead bodies. Carefully as he can, he raises the guy’s torso, keeping his hands as far as possible from the big wound. With that better angle, Foggy wraps his arms around him from behind, looped beneath the other guy’s armpits, and stumbles back as quickly as he can to get him away from the tide’s grasping hands.

“It’s ok, man, I’ve got you,” Foggy mutters, voice strained with effort. “I’m gonna get you help, alright? You’re—” And then Foggy looks up and nearly drops the guy, because spooling out of the water is not a pair of pale legs but a shimmering, enormous red-black fish tail. “Holy shit. You’re a merman. What, what the fuck. What the _fuck_.”

Foggy keeps pulling until the merman is all the way onto the beach because, what else is he going to do? He can’t perform triage while the tide’s coming in because even if the merman can’t drown, Foggy sure as hell can.

Then, between one blink and the next, the tail vanishes as if it were never there, leaving behind two perfectly ordinary but oddly hairless human legs.

“I’m going crazy,” Foggy concludes, though it’s a very distant realization when he’s dragging a naked, bleeding man across the beach. “Oh god, Marci was right, I’m losing my marbles. They’re gonna put me in a home. I’m gonna be fired for craziness. It couldn’t have been nice hallucinations like hot chicks or— pots of gold. Fuck. No, of course not. Just _freaking_ mermaid tails to go with all those corporate sharks I’m swimming with. How is this my life? What did I ever do to deserve this? Is it because I’m a sellout? I just wanted to be able to afford nice suits for once in my life, is that so bad?”

He continues to ramble to himself in this manner all the way up to the cottage, trying his damnedest to stave off an imminent panic attack. Between talking and exertion, he’s at least able to fool himself into hoping the sharp pangs in his chest are from that and not the mother of all freak outs.

Foggy heaves a sigh heavy with relief once they’re both into the cottage. The little scratches on the guy aren’t bleeding anymore, but the big one is and it needs to stop or Foggy really will have another corpse on his hands. He fumbles through the kitchen drawers for a clean cloth, and uses it to put steady pressure on the wound. When that first cloth bleeds through, he adds a second, too focused on his task for any sort of nausea to manifest at the way his fingers are getting slick with blood. The man doesn’t wake, but after several long, tense minutes, the bleeding finally stops.

With a heavy sigh, Foggy leans back on his heels and swipes the back of his right arm against his sweaty forehead. _Relaxing beachfront my ass_ , he thinks with shaky fervor. But at least his patient is alive and breathing steadily and no longer gushing blood all over the both of them.

And then another barrier to the very, very necessary medical treatment the not-merman needs — and guess who’s going to have to continue to administer it for the time being, since the nearest hospital is forty minutes away? — presents itself. He’s completely covered in sand.

There’s no way in hell that’s sanitary, and Foggy’s not going to wash this bloodied, naked stranger off with the sink nozzle in the middle of the kitchen floor, no matter how well the tile would take it. So, after Foggy washes his own hands off and gives up his bloodied pajamas as a loss, into the bathroom and into the bathtub the man goes. Foggy turns on the faucets, then trails the fingers of one hand under the stream while he adjusts the temperature with the other hand. Slowly, the tub fills until it’s mid-chest on the unconscious, naked man and his legs are fully submerged.

And suddenly the tail is back. It’s so large that it curves out of the bathtub and down to the floor where Foggy’s kneeling — curls all the way behind him and around the other side in an arc. Foggy swallows down a squeak of surprise and reaches out a trembling hand to touch the glittering scales. Under the light of the bathroom they’re more crimson than black, and glow like red glass. The pattern of them is rougher under his fingers than he expects, even though Foggy’s felt fish scales before. But most importantly, he _can_ feel them. So unless he’s having both visual and tactile hallucinations now — not completely out of the question — the tail is real. Ok. Great. Cool.

Foggy sucks in three or four freaked-out breaths, and then remembers, oh yeah, gotta fix the guy up.

Step one now that he’s no longer bleeding out, clean off the sand.

So Foggy does, grabbing a clean washcloth and dipping it into the water before using it to brush away the coating of sand the merman is wearing like a second skin.

And look, Foggy tries to be professional about it. He does. But like... Even with the off-putting ethereal beauty of the mermaid tail, the guy is... He’s really hot, ok? And no wonder it was a bitch and a half to haul him up the beach because while he might not be huge, the dude is ripped as hell. His hair, still damp, is short and dark and riotous. His eyelashes are long, his jawline is a work of art, and the bow of his lips is rounded and inviting.

Foggy slaps his cheeks a few times, shakes his head so hard that the ends of his chin-length hair smack him in the face.

“Pull it together, self,” he scolds softly. “Jeez.”

He hurries to finish wiping Bleeding Guy down, then grabs the first aid kit from under the sink. It’s really well-stocked, which is about the first bit of luck Foggy’s had in months. He closes the plastic box again to keep its contents dry, then sets it on the closed toilet lid for when he needs it.

The merman is still out cold. Foggy hopes he doesn’t have any sort of brain injury, because a comatose fish person is just about the last thing he needs right now. Nonetheless, there’s really nothing for it but to continue, and his next goal is to get everything clean to avoid infection.

However, at the first careful dab of a soapy cloth on the big wound, the merman wakes with a scream, his tail thrashing wildly. It knocks the bottle of hand soap and the toothbrush holder off the sink. A sharp, spiny fin catches Foggy’s cheek and slices it open while another coil of tail hits him in the gut, knocking the wind right out of him and slamming him into the cupboards under the sink.

“Wait! Stop!” Foggy rasps, clutching his ribs. “I’m just trying to help, man! Please!”

The merman replies, but it’s just a violent series of clicks and guttural noises. Eventually, the thrashing does stop — but only after the merman has wrapped his tail around Foggy two or three times, pinning his arms firmly to his sides.

“Come on we can— we can sort this out, dude. I promise I was only trying to help. You’ve got a hell of a nasty wound on your arm, and—” Foggy looks into the merman’s hazel eyes, but the gaze is not returned; the unusual stillness of it is familiar somehow, as if he’s seen it somewhere before— “Holy shit, you’re blind.”

The merman tilts his head slightly to the side and says nothing. His sightless eyes continue to stare somewhere over Foggy’s left shoulder.

“Oh shit. Do you even understand English? Do you have any idea what I’m saying?”

A mocking, unbearably pretty smirk flashes across the blind merman’s face.

“Yes,” he replies succinctly, in a low, enunciated voice. “I understand English.”

“Ok, great, that’s— Yeah. Great. Cool. Is that like a thing? Do mermaids generally speak English or...?”

“We don’t speak to one another in human languages, no,” the merman explains, condescending and amused. “But I’m a quick study. And while my sight might be shit, my hearing’s fantastic.”

Foggy nods enthusiastically.

“Awesome. Great. Do you think you could maybe, uh...”

Unsure the polite way to say ‘release me from your massive and slightly terrifying tail please’, Foggy tries to flex his arms outwards. The merman’s eyes narrow, and the coils of his tail tighten around Foggy.

“Or not, that’s fine!” Foggy wheezes. “Whatever you’re comfortable with! You’re in charge here! But we really should clean that gouge in your arm—”

“I can handle it,” the merman informs him, tone matter-of-fact.

With a few deep sniffs, he seems to smell out the soap and stretches forward with a pained hiss to grab the bar, and the cloth that had thankfully landed on the lip of the bathtub and not on the sandy floor. Foggy watches, a literal captive audience, as the merman cleans out the gaping wound with methodical surety. It’s strangely mesmerizing.

“Bandages.”

He doesn’t even realize he’s being spoken to until the merman flicks his tail fin into Foggy’s face and shakes him out of his stupor.

“Bandages! Right! Th-they’re um. They’re in the. The box over— Um.” Foggy pauses, momentarily at a loss with how to convey direction to a blind merman — do merpeople use clock directions? Do they know what clocks are? Oh, fuck it, he thinks. “At your eight o’clock — Uh. To your left, in the box sitting on the toilet.”

Half sloshing out of the tub, the merman gropes for the first aid kit and finds it relatively quickly. Then he clicks it open with ease, plucks out a roll of gauze, and goes to town like a pro. It’s utterly bizarre.

“Thank you.”

“Y-yeah um. No problem, buddy. I’m... I’m Foggy, by the way.” He hurries to explain when the merman tilts his head with a puzzled expression. “M-my name, I mean. My name is Foggy.”

“Foggy,” the merman repeats thoughtfully, then makes a low, wavering sound that has Foggy shivering. “Hm. I’d never considered a name like that before, but I suppose it does sound nice. I’m... My name doesn’t translate so simply, I’m afraid. It’s...”

And then the merman makes another haunting noise, this one more solid and sharp and deep, followed by two clicks.

“Oh,” Foggy says faintly. “Whoa. I, uh, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pronounce that. Like I’m legitimately not sure if my vocal chords are equipped to make that noise.”

The merman smirks.

“They’re not.”

“And you said it doesn’t translate well...” muses Foggy, wishing his arms were free so he could rub at his chin thoughtfully.

The merman nods.

“There isn’t really a human equivalent. It’s something like... ‘Blessed child of the abyssal red’ maybe? But even ‘red’ isn’t an accurate translation. It’s a color you humans don’t see.”

“So you can see more colors than humans? I mean.” Foggy falters, catches himself. “I guess not you personally, sorry, is that offensive? But um. Like, mer... people...? In general?”

A quiet puff of laughter ghosts past the merman’s lips.

“Yes. My kind see a great many more colors than yours, myself excluded.”

Foggy’s pretty sure he remembers reading about some kind of shrimp with like, sixteen color receptors in its eyes. He wonders how many merpeople have. And then his brain, Negative Nancy that it is, reminds him that he’ll never see the color that’s the merman’s namesake and, more tragically, the merman is never gonna see it either. Or see it again — was he born blind, or...? But even Foggy knows that’s horrifically rude to ask, so he tries to steer his mind back to the matter at hand. Namely, that he can’t keep calling this guy ‘the merman’ on into perpetuity.

“Cool. So, uh, I still don’t have anything to call you,” he points out.

But instead of help or any sort of guidance, Foggy gets an unconcerned shrug.

“All your human names sound strange to me anyway, so you can call me whatever you like.”

Which leaves Foggy furrowing his brow and scrunching his face as he contemplates the handsome merman’s features and thinks back on his warbling name, how it ended in a double click.

“Well, then... How about... Matt?” he suggests at last. “You look like a Matt, I dunno.”

The merman swishes his hand through the bathwater idly, pursing his lips into a contemplative frown.

“Matt... Matt...” A slight smile crosses his face. “I like that, actually. Matt.”

_Oh no_ , Foggy thinks helplessly. _He’s cute._

“Uh, so, now that we’re all introduced and everything can we maybe renegotiate this— restraint thing? Maybe?”

Matt frowns, tilts his head back and forth as he considers the suggestion.

“Promise you won’t do me harm in any way,” he insists firmly. “I’ll know if you’re lying.”

There’s a very slight tightening of the tail around him that makes Foggy’s breath hitch.

“I promise, man! Just— this is really weird, ok? Also, I’m getting kind of claustrophobic. And trust me, no one wants me to start hyperventilating or something, that’d just be embarrassing for both of us—”

There’s a scratchy slide of scales on skin, and then Matt has his tail draped over the tub instead of wrapped around Foggy like a boa constrictor. Flexing his freed arms, Foggy heaves a sigh of relief.

“Cool. Thanks, man.”

Matt quirks an eyebrow.

“Sure,” he says at last. “You’re welcome.”

Foggy nods, watches Matt continue to trail his fingers through the bathwater. And then it hits him.

“Oh, shit, the water! Are you ok in there? I mean, it’s not salt water, and you were in the ocean, is it hurting you? Do I need, I can go get salt from the kitchen and—”

Matt snorts. Then coughs. And then he _laughs_ , long and loud; tips his head back and presses a dripping hand over his face.

“No,” he says, slightly winded and very amused, when the laughter dies down to breathy chuckles. “Whew. No, I’m fine in freshwater too. Did that truly only now occur to you?”

Foggy crosses his arms defensively.

“W-well, you know, you had _legs_ when I put you in there.”

Matt grins wide enough that Foggy catches sight of a pair of sharp, glinting eyeteeth.

“It’s very sweet of you to be concerned,” says Matt, still obviously mocking him.

“You’re being an asshole,” Foggy points out, and Matt only grins wider.

“I don’t think you mind.”

He doesn’t, but he really wishes Matt didn’t sound so certain about it. After all, Foggy knows he’s not, you know, _full of mystique_ at the best of times, but having a dude you met minutes ago see right through you so quickly is kind of mortifying. He clears his throat and casts around for a new topic of conversation. What does one ask a mermaid? Especially one who nearly got himself ki—

_Hmmm. Now there’s a thought._

“So what happened to you, anyway?”

Matt tilts his head.

“Huh?”

“The huge chunk out of your arm, dude.”

“Oh. Oh, well.” Matt shrugs gingerly and there’s another flash of the eyeteeth. “I just got in a fight, that’s all.”

“A fight? Who the hell were you even fighting?” asks Foggy, too curious to worry about being rude. “Deep sea ninjas?”

Matt pulls a scrunched, baffled face that should not be as cute as it is.

“ _No_ , what—? Nevermind. I don’t want to know. I was fighting shark poachers.”

Foggy blinks.

“Shark poachers.”

“Yes,” Matt agrees, slowly, like he thinks Foggy’s a little dense. “They hunt sharks? Steal their fins and leave them to die? How else would I end up taking a harpoon to the arm?”

Foggy scrubs his hands across his face – wincing when he accidentally hits the cut on his cheek – and takes a deep breath.

“So. Let me get this straight. You fought a bunch of poachers armed with _harpoons_... Using your bare fists.”

Matt shrugs, flicks his tail and flares his spiny fins.

“And my tail. They never seem to see that one coming.”

“No,” Foggy agrees weakly, “I doubt they would. Why shark poachers, though?”

“Someone has to do it,” Matt insists, jutting his chin out stubbornly. “And I can.”

Which is just... Like yeah, ok, cool, good on Matt for being a conscientious citizen of the sea or whatever but that isn’t really what Foggy meant at all. He’d thought the intent behind his question had been obvious, but then, he’s asking the kind of daredevil of a merman who punches shark poachers, so maybe he’s as unafraid of getting munched on by his rescuees as he is of getting stabbed by the poachers.

“No, I mean,” Foggy clarifies at last, “you’re half fish, right? And sharks eat fish. Environmental conservation aside, wouldn’t you be more likely to be glad they’re being hunted?”

But Matt only shakes his head.

“Not really. Sharks are predators, it’s true, and they’re dangerous. But they don’t prey on my kind and...” Matt trails off with a smirk. “I’m pretty dangerous myself.”

Foggy swallows hard.

“Uh, yeah, I, um. I can imagine.”

In many ways, honestly, because that supremely kissable smirk is basically a heart attack waiting to happen to some poor unsuspecting bisexual — case in point, Foggy himself. Which is inappropriate and weird to be thinking about a guy who is literally half fish. _Get it together, self_ , Foggy thinks.

“But what about you?” Matt asks suddenly. “You’re not the human who usually stays in this beach house.”

“No, I’m not,” agrees Foggy. “It’s, uh, kind of a long story. I’m gesturing vaguely, because honestly I don’t even... Yeah. It’s just a long story.”

There’s a pause as Matt seems to consider that lackluster explanation. Then he flops the end of his tail, a little like a shrug.

“I’ve probably got time for it.”

Which wasn’t what Foggy would usually consider an eager ‘go ahead’ but he’s maybe kind of needed to talk about this to someone who can’t possibly be in L&Z’s pocket for a while, and Matt is basically volunteering. So... Foggy tells him the story. He’s not sure how much Matt really understands about law firms or investigating weird numbers in the company books — do merpeople have currency? do they have lawyers? — but there’s a comfortingly concerned crease to his brow when Foggy gets to the part where he found Jeannie’s body.

“I shouldn’t have agreed to help her when she came to me,” he concludes bitterly, raking a hand through his hair. “I should have told her to stop looking into things. Maybe then she’d still be...”

“No.”

Foggy blinks, taken aback at the vehemence in Matt’s voice.

“Um...”

“What happened to her isn’t your fault,” Matt insists. “She’s the one who pulled you in, so she was already in danger. And you, you were doing what you thought was right by helping her.”

He sounds extremely adamant about it, that wanting to do the right thing is a good enough reason. Foggy’s not so sure, but it’s nice hearing such certainty from someone else.

“Thanks,” he says, maybe a bit more choked up than he really should be after receiving validation from a virtual stranger — let alone one that belongs in The Little Mermaid.

“You don’t have to thank me for the truth.”

Foggy rolls his eyes, but finds himself smiling a little.

“Then I’ll thank you for listening,” he tells Matt.

It’s tough to be certain, but Foggy thinks Matt’s cheeks might pink a little at that.

“You, um, you’re welcome.”

“And for letting me out of your tail,” Foggy adds just to tease him.

Happily, he gets exactly the kind of response he was looking for — playful indignation.

“Plenty of people would love to be wrapped up in it,” Matt sniffs. “This tail is a work of art.”

Which is hilarious, especially when coupled with him upturning his nose. When he’s done playing at offense, he settles back into the tub, displaying his scales more prominently and idly flicking his fin, a bit like a cat twitching its tail.

“It really is stunning,” Foggy admits quietly, and trails his fingertips over the scales; Matt’s unfocused eyes go temptingly half-lidded, and there’s the beginnings of a smile at the corners of his mouth, more relaxed than any expression he’s made so far. “Kind of makes me wish I had one, honestly.”

Without warning, Matt jerks upright, and tugs his tail away from Foggy’s touch.

“I should go,” he rasps.

“Go?”

“Back home. To the ocean. I need to, I have. Things I need to do.”

He moves almost frantically, splashing bath water everywhere as he tries to lever himself out of the tub. Foggy, still dizzy from the sudden turn in the conversation, does little more than watch him, baffled.

“You’re planning to swim with your wound wrapped like that?” he asks at last. “I’m not sure it’ll hold up in water. And the salt...”

But Matt shakes his head.

“The salt will be fine. It won’t hurt me. As for the bandages, I have a... I have a friend, who usually patches me up,” Matt explains. “This should hold me until I get to her.”

“Well, if you’re sure. You’re welcome to stay, you know,” offers Foggy, resting a hand on Matt’s uninjured shoulder.

Matt nods, but his smile is twitchy. Foggy had thought they were getting along, but he begins to second-guess himself a little as the signs of discomfort in Matt’s body language pile up. He retracts his hand, a knot forming in his stomach.

“Yeah, I. Yeah. Thanks,” says Matt. “But I couldn’t. I, uh, I really should get back.”

“Right... Well, ok, that’s... Do you need any help getting back to the water?”

He’s not sure why he asks, when he’s certain Matt will say no. But, to his surprise, Matt agrees to assistance, pink-eared and with a conflicted expression. He must really need the help, to agree to it even when he’s obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable. So, Foggy tries to make it as painless as possible — carefully hauling Matt out of the tub so he’ll lose the tail in favor of legs, then offering his arm so it’s Matt holding him instead of the other way around as he leads him down the beach. Matt’s shoulders are tense, Foggy notes out of the corner of his eye. He’s also slowly rubbing his thumb up and down against the bare inside of Foggy’s arm, which is both sending some extremely mixed signals to Foggy’s poor brain and very difficult to ignore. The walk down to the water seems to last an eternity.

When Matt finally lets go and steps into the surf, the place where he held Foggy’s arm still burns warm — which is. It’s incredibly stupid and nonsensical, because Matt’s hands are actually kind of cold and clammy. Foggy’s so distracted by that that he misses the moment Matt’s tail returns, and when he looks back all he can see over the water is Matt’s head and the tip of his tail fin.

“Goodbye, Foggy,” Matt says.

“Goodbye,” echoes Foggy, right before Matt ducks his head under the water.

There’s one last flick of red-black tail, and then Matt disappears completely beneath the waves. Though it’s a little chilly, Foggy stands on the shore and watches the ocean for another five minutes before he turns around and heads back inside.


	2. Legs Are Weird

In all honesty, Foggy’s not expecting to see Matt again. For one thing, if it weren’t for the messy first aid kit still sitting out in the bathroom, he’d think the whole thing was a dream. And even though it’s _not_ , even though it really happened, Matt had seemed so desperate to get back in the ocean that Foggy can’t think of a reason he’d return to the shoreline. So, to say he’s shocked when three days later, while washing his lunch dishes, a familiar head of dark hair pops above the waves is something of an understatement.

Nonetheless, while Foggy’s brain is still trying to reconcile the image with reality, his feet are pulling him out the door and down the beach. He skids to a stop just short of the water, and has to catch his breath before speaking.

“Matt?”

The merman makes an affirmative-sounding chirp, then coughs, his pale cheeks flooding with color.

“I. Um. I mean, yes,” he says. “Hello, Foggy.”

Then Matt shifts, rising out of the ocean a little so most of his torso is visible. It looks like he has kelp or seaweed or something tied around his arm now. Which probably holds up better in water, Foggy supposes, since it grows there and all. He’s not really certain how sanitary it is, but maybe mermaid biology is different.

“I guess you saw your friend and got fixed up?” Foggy asks.

Matt’s hand goes to his new bandages, and he nods.

“Yeah, she. She helped me out.”

“Cool,” says Foggy, awkwardly, for lack of anything else to respond with. “That’s good.”

He wants to ask why Matt came back, when he was so desperate to get away last time. But that’s a tough thing to question without coming across as accusatory, so he just shifts his weight from foot to foot, unsure. Matt doesn’t seem to know what to say either, judging by his silence and the strained discomfort on his face.

“So, um, what’s up?” Foggy finally bites the bullet and asks.

“I,” says Matt, then pauses. “I didn’t thank you before. For patching me up. So, thanks.”

Foggy finds himself oddly touched.

“Hey, no problem, man. Anytime.”

Without even a hint of warning, that dangerous grin from last time steals over Matt’s face.

“Anytime, huh?”

Foggy swallows thickly.

“Well, obviously try to avoid getting harpooned in the future,” he says, trying for a light, laughing tone and failing horrendously. “But, yeah, happy to help.”

He kind of expects that’ll be the end of it. That, thanks accepted, Matt will dive back into the waves and not return. But he doesn’t. He… Lingers, really, is the best word for it. His tail fin flicks up through the surface of the water a few times, the only break to the awkward silence between them.

“Something else you wanted to talk about?” Foggy ventures, when the tension begins to make him itchy and restless.

Matt shrugs.

“Just not busy today,” he says.

“No shark poachers to attack, huh. Scared them all off for good?”

The mid-morning sunlight winks off Matt’s canines as he flashes a crooked grin.

“I’m sure they’ll be back eventually,” replies Matt in a humble and magnanimous tone that doesn’t at all match his expression. “Humans are stubborn like that.”

With a grin of his own, Foggy shakes his head.

“Says the guy stubborn enough to keep chasing them away.”

Something about their little banter breaks the ice, and within minutes Foggy’s sitting cross-legged in the sand exchanging stories about escaping the drudgery of selling meat for the rest of his life for stories about living under the ocean. The sand is still damp as the morning’s high tide retreats, but Foggy hardly minds if it soaks through his shorts a little.

He’d thought being alone had improved his mental state – getting away from the bustle and expectations of the city – but, truthfully, he’s been lonely even if he hasn’t admitted it to himself until now. Talking with Matt is new and interesting and engaging, and that’s doing wonders for his mood.

“Say, do you guys have a government or what?” he asks eventually, leaning back on his hands. “Like, are you breaking some big mer-law by talking to me?”

It is actually something he’s wondering about, but Foggy’s not about to complain when Matt laughs. It’s the same laugh as before, giddy and unrestrained.

“We try not to get involved with humans, as a rule,” Matt explains, mouth still pulled into a grin he can’t seem to stifle. “But no, there’s not a law against it. I might get in trouble if I led you back to the shoal, but. Well. That’s just common sense.”

“Shoal?”

Matt twirls a hand through the air.

“You know,” he says. “Shoal. Pod. Community.”

Huh. Shoal. Foggy files it away in his woefully small file of ‘hey, mermaids are real’ facts, then narrates his nod of understanding for Matt. Afterwards, he makes the mistake of asking about Matt’s family – a mother who left him as a baby and a father who was murdered, so that’s, you know, _delightful_. And possibly explains something about his deep-seated need to punch people. At least having to explain the obviously more human-oriented turn of phrase ‘sticking your foot in your mouth’ to Matt steers their conversation back to less fraught waters. They talk all day, so long that Foggy has to go snag himself a bottle of water. He offers to grab one for Matt too, but the merman just seems puzzled at the gesture.

“Can I visit you again tomorrow?” Matt asks when the last few red rays of sunlight are sinking under the horizon, fidgeting with the end of his tail fin – not flirty, like a girl might twirl her hair, but more nervous, the way a human might fiddle with the cuff of their sleeve.

“Of course!” says Foggy, probably too eagerly, then clears his throat and dials himself back in. “I mean, I’ll be here for another month, pretty much doing nothing, so. You know. Feel free.”

* * *

It becomes a regular thing over the next week – Matt popping in around noon and the two of them talking the day away. Foggy sometimes dips his toes into the water, or wades into the shallows, but Matt never comes up on land.

That’s fine, of course, but when the tides go out it does make things a little difficult. Foggy prefers sitting on the wide, flat rock near where they first met, just so he doesn’t have to spend time dusting sand off his butt, and at low tide it’s pretty far from the water. Matt tends to end up plopped on the beach with just the last few feet of his tail underwater.

“It might be more comfortable for you if you just came out and dried off so you didn’t have to flop around,” Foggy points out after two days of trying to find a good seating arrangement that worked for both of them. “Legs are pretty convenient for moving around on the beach.”

“Legs are _weird_ ,” Matt insists with a scoff and a dismissive toss of his head.

Foggy rolls his eyes.

“Wow, thanks.”

Pulling a chagrined expression, Matt coughs into his fist.

“But I’m sure yours are… Nice. And, um. Attractive. To other humans.”

“Don’t strain yourself, buddy,” replies Foggy, more amused by Matt’s fumbling than anything as he lies back against the rock with his hands behind his head.

Matt’s pretty suave and cool, but there’s a vein of awkward dweeb somewhere under the surface that Foggy can occasionally catch glimpses of if he tries, and, like now, it always cheers him up.

Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t think Matt’s tail is a little weird too. Although, despite the freakiness of it, it _is_ undeniably pretty as it shines in the sun. Foggy’s not really sure Matt would think the same of his legs, which are pale and chubby and have never received any particularly glowing reviews from anyone. Not that Foggy thinks they look bad, because, well, he’s already overcome that tide of body image bullshit and he’s a grown ass man who’s not going to let it tug him back under, but… He’s not exactly expecting anyone – particularly Matt, who thinks legs themselves are weird and unattractive – to wax rhapsodic about them.

They’re just, you know, legs. There for propelling Foggy from place to place. Thinking everything has to be beautiful is, in his opinion, an unnecessary strain – some things just are what they are, and they don’t need to justify themselves with beauty.

Thoughts of his legs pass from Foggy’s mind quick enough as he and Matt continue to talk, but apparently Matt’s not as easily distracted. Not fifteen minutes later, Matt ducks his chin down towards his chest and breaks a comfortable silence with,

“Can I touch them?”

Foggy inhales so suddenly that he chokes, and has to cough a few times to catch his breath.

“ _What_?” he demands. “Touch _what_?”

“Your legs,” Matt explains, both flippant and impatient. “Can I touch your legs?”

Stunned into silence, Foggy just stares at Matt’s stupidly handsome face for a few seconds.

“Why would you want to?” he manages to muster at last.

There’s an awkward shrug, and Matt’s back to worrying at the edge of his tail fin. It’s a self-soothing action, Foggy thinks, and largely unconscious, but he hasn’t asked because he doesn’t want to risk making Matt insecure about it.

“You touched my tail,” replies Matt, sounding very reasonable.

It’s… Sort of the same thing, Foggy supposes. There’s obviously no way that this is Matt coming on to him – to be honest he seems like the kind of guy who’d just come out and say it if he was into someone – so it’s got to be just innocent scientific curiosity. That’s fine. Foggy can deal with that. It won’t be weird.

“Yeah, ok,” he agrees, slipping off his seat on the boulder and dropping down in the sand next to Matt with his legs stretched out. “Uh, go ahead, I guess.”

Matt traces fingertips over the sand until he hits Foggy’s leg, and then one cool, damp hand encircles his ankle. It’s just shock at the difference in temperature, obviously, that makes Foggy jump. Matt pauses, turns his face up towards Foggy’s like he’s waiting for more permission.

“I’m fine,” says Foggy, clearing his throat. “You can… You know, whatever.”

Matt’s smile this time is close-lipped, gentle and soothing. His dark eyes don’t meet Foggy’s, obviously, but they’re soft, and the corners crinkle. Foggy’s pretty sure he read somewhere that that’s how you know a smile is real instead of forced.

Slowly, Matt’s hand traces down to Foggy’s foot. He bends Foggy’s toes up and down with interest, then skates a thumb across the bottom arch of Foggy’s foot in a way that sends a shiver shooting up his spine. Foggy bites his lip and breathes through his nose.

Seeming to lose his reluctance, then, Matt rolls from his side onto his front and loosely grabs one of Foggy’s legs in each hand. They drift up his calves to his knees, which Matt traces with the pads of his thumbs, an interested tilt to his head.

_It’s weird_ , Foggy realizes, his inner voice slightly hysterical as Matt’s hands don’t stop there but begin to creep up towards the hem of his shorts. _Definitely weird. Extremely weird._

But he doesn’t want Matt to stop.

The feel of those callused palms gliding up his bare thighs is enough to make Foggy’s gut clench.

_You do not have the hots for a fish person_ , he tells himself firmly, despite the mounting evidence that he does. _That would be ridiculous. You are not Prince Eric or that chick from The Shape of Water. Get your shit together_.

Thankfully for everyone, Matt’s uh, expedition northwards stops abruptly when his knuckles brush the khaki fabric of Foggy’s unfashionable-but-comfy shorts. He pulls his hands away with an odd half-smile and pink ears.

“Nice. Um. Nice legs,” he says and sounds just as awkward as before but oddly not quite as insincere.

“Glad you like them,” replies Foggy, because he is a moron with no filter.

“Like you like my tail.”

Which is. True, yeah, he does like Matt's tail - it's bizarre and beautiful. But. Ok, it’s just not really the same. And he should definitely be telling Matt that, that groping another dude’s thighs is a little teensy bit beyond the pale of acceptable platonic touching. Instead of being a horrible creep and letting Matt do that without realizing that it’s not the same, that there’s some connotations he’s missing about legs that probably don’t apply to touching a merperson’s tail.

Instead he just agrees, voice strained, that he does like Matt’s tail. It’s a very nice tail, a lovely tail. The compliments bring a startled beam to Matt’s face. Foggy is the literal worst, holy shit.

“I have to go,” Matt says.

He sounds very eager to get to it, but he’s still smiling so… Everything’s probably ok? Besides Foggy being the creepiest creeper to ever creep, but Matt doesn’t know that.

“See you tomorrow?” asks Foggy, pathetically, instead of telling Matt he should probably stay away before Foggy gets more inappropriate ideas about interspecies romance in his head.

Matt nods and squeezes Foggy’s ankle again and says,

“Tomorrow.”

Then he does a very impressive backflip over his own tail and dives into the ocean with a splash. Still dazed, Foggy sits there on the beach for several minutes after Matt’s gone. When it’s a sure thing that he’s alone, he flops backwards into the sand and presses his hands to his face with a groan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with some [adorable fanart](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/577857839025094676/684509152348864512/image0.png) from the very kind Red!


	3. Glimmer-Tail's Interlude

Tail That Glimmers Like Moonlit Water — Glimmer-Tail to her friends — is used to dealing with the bizarre. It’s sort of become her trade, right behind healing. Part of it, she can admit, is herself. She’s just the kind of person who draws in the weird and troubled; she’d tried to take something of a sabbatical from it on land once — used an old spell to try and trade her crystalline tail for peace of mind — but had only found that humans had the capability to be bizarre and reckless beyond her wildest dreams.

The other half of things is, of course, Little Red. He’s her most frequent patient; when someone bursts into her medicine cavern it usually turns out to be Red with another injury from the surface-dwellers. The rest of the shoal thinks he’s reckless, or even suicidal, to keep throwing himself at poachers. But Glimmer-Tail doesn’t begrudge him his idiosyncrasies or his coping mechanisms, for all that she despairs of how often he comes back to the shoal injured. Red’s had a hard life, and he copes with it by beating the shit out of poachers. For that reason, Glimmer-Tail knows it has to be him even before she turns to look.

What she _is_ surprised to see is the white bandage wrapped around his arm. It’s a sure sign that whatever medical care he got came from topside. It’s already beginning to sag and loosen as it soaks up water, so Glimmer-Tail grabs some kelp first, to replace it. Then, remembering the state of some of Red’s previous wounds, the times he’d tried to treat them himself, she also picks up a jar of her best ointment.

Glimmer-Tail keeps her movements steady. Doesn’t rush to her patient. And that calm aura more than anything seems to be warranted for this situation: Red is wild-eyed and a little flushed.

“I met a human,” he blurts, without prompting.

But acting interested, she knows, is the surest way to get him to realize he’s doing some personal sharing and clam up again. So instead of asking, Glimmer-Tail says,

“It _looks_ like you met the business end of a harpoon.”

At that, Red cracks a rare fanged grin.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Something like that. I, uh. I may have... Gotten beached.”

Acknowledging his words with a quiet hum, Glimmer-Tail begins to unwind the bandages around Red’s arm so she can expose his wound to open water. Beached. In other words, Red didn’t seek out a human’s help with his wound, one just came across him bleeding out like an idiot and decided to play Good Samaritan. Which only makes sense, considering Red’s myriad grudges against them — for taking his father from him, because of his human mother who rejected him. Even if he was dying he probably wouldn’t go to a human willingly. But Red’s not like her; he doesn’t need a spell to lose his tail, he just has to be out of the water. Beached, any human might mistake him for one of them.

“Beached, hm?” Glimmer-Tail asks, dodging the topic of humans again.

Let Red bring it up himself. That’s the way to do it.

“I, um, woke up in a bathtub,” Red admits, his ears going pink.

Only biting her lip stops Glimmer-Tail from full-on laughing at him. A bathtub. Tides, that would’ve been something to see. Him, a big, muscular, fully-grown merman, stuffed into a bathtub like a common pond fish. She likes Red’s human already.

Finally, the bandage is off. Glimmer-Tail bundles it up so it doesn’t drift out of the cavern, then inspects Red’s wound. It looks clean, at least. Glimmer-Tail coats it in ointment anyway.

“There was a, um, a human there,” Red continues. “He saved me.”

“And does this human have a name?” asks Glimmer-Tail, and immediately regrets it based on the dopey smile it brings to Red’s face.

“Yeah,” he tells her with a pathetic, lovesick kind of sigh. “It’s Fog Rolling In Off The Ocean.”

That’s definitely not a human name. Meaning one of two things: either Red’s human isn’t a human at all, or...

“You _Named_ him?”

“It’s just a translation!” defends Red. “And he, um, he did the same for me, since humans can’t pronounce our names. It doesn’t matter.”

It definitely matters. It absolutely one hundred percent matters. Red is just an oblivious moron with zero social skills. Who apparently falls in love upon first meeting.

“So what’s his human name?”

Glimmer-Tail checks Red’s wound over one more time and then begins wrapping it.

“Foggy,” Red admits, his ears a little pink. “And he, um. He called me ‘Matt’.”

Red goes on to explain the entire ridiculous sequence of events. The more it continues, the more tempted Glimmer-Tail is to just drop her head into her hands.

And then Red hits the point of the story with the tail-stroking. Stroking someone’s tail is pretty damn intimate, and usually akin to a spoken come-on, especially when packaged together with a compliment on the tail’s beauty. But Glimmer-Tail seriously doubts Red’s human knows that. Still, this Foggy had clearly done his best to fix Red up — for that reason, she’s not too concerned about Red continuing to see him even though he’s clearly overinvested. Red himself, of course, is all defensiveness and self-recriminations.

He obviously isn’t going to see Foggy again. It was a one-time meeting. Humans are the worst anyway.

“I courted a human once,” Glimmer-Tail mentions lightly, smoothing the last of the kelp into place so it won’t unravel. “They’re not all as bad as your poachers, you know.”

_Or your mother_ , she doesn’t say. Nonetheless, what she _has_ said gets him to shut up for a precious second or two.

“You did?” Red asks, petulance warring with interest. “You never told _me_ that.”

Glimmer-Tail rolls her eyes.

“I didn’t want to talk about it.”

She still doesn’t, not really. But it’s been a while, and the wounds have faded, and she supposes that it’s better that Red talks with her about humans than someone else. After all, despite what kinds of knowledge of the surface-dwellers other members of the shoal might pretend at, Glimmer-Tail is the only one who’s spent enough time on land to have her own human name: Claire Temple.

She gives Red the basic rundown of her months with Luke, leaving out all the superhuman nonsense she ran into up top and focusing instead on the people themselves.

“As long as you’re careful and take precautions,” she concludes, “there’s nothing wrong with befriending humans.”

Red nods, thoughtfully.

“Yeah, maybe— maybe you’re right.”

* * *

Even so, Little Red isn’t the kind of guy who can let himself have things when he wants them, so he spends three full days swimming back and forth in the medicine cavern annoying Glimmer-Tail by debating it with himself. What a stupid idea it is, how he should never ever want to befriend a human anyway, how it’s safer for the shoal if he doesn’t get too close to this human. And on the other side, how nice the human had been, how kind and brave, how sweet his voice was, how good he’d smelled. The infatuation is pretty damn obvious. Red, of course, doesn’t see it — not because he’s blind, but because he has the self-awareness of a clam.

“Red,” she tells him when her patience finally reaches its limit, “if you don’t go see your human again and get some closure I am going to drag you down to the Abyss with my bare hands and leave you there.”

That at least scares him away from her for a while. She has no idea if he’s actually gone to see the human until he returns in the evening and barrels her over like some fry with no control over his fins.

“I visited him!” Red announces. “And he said I can come again tomorrow!”

“Congratulations,” grouses Glimmer-Tail, spitting hair out of her mouth. “Will you get off?”

* * *

And so Red ends up going to the surface every day to visit his human. Well, good for him, as far as Glimmer-Tail's concerned. Things don’t seem to be going anywhere on the romance front, so hopefully Red will just come out of this whole situation with a new friend and an appreciation that not all humans are evil.

Then, of course, Red shows up with the biggest, dumbest grin on his face and Glimmer-Tail knows without a doubt that something monumentally stupid has just occurred.

“What did you do?” she sighs, rubbing a hand over her face.

“I, I asked and he. He let me touch his legs,” Red admits breathlessly. “I told him I liked them and he told me he still liked my tail and. And.”

_By the fucking tides_ , Glimmer-Tail thinks and does not say. She’s beginning to notice how often her filter comes into play when it comes to Red’s impulsiveness.

“You’re going to court him, then?” she asks instead, neutrally.

“Yeah,” he tells her, without an ounce of hesitation, a determined look on his face. “I am.”


	4. A Gift of Food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is even more lovely fanart for this fic! Please check the related works link for two, and [here](https://pomegranate-belle.tumblr.com/post/617335943580565504/decided-to-do-a-little-fanart-of-my-own-for-my) for some art I did myself of Glimmer-Tail/Claire!

The next day, Matt brings him a fish. Foggy accepts it, a little bemused over Matt’s eagerness.

“Um. Thanks?”

“I caught it myself,” Matt explains meaningfully. “These ones taste good.”

It clicks for Foggy, then. Of course. A little like baking cookies for a new friend, or bringing over a casserole to new neighbors — food as bonding ritual is something Foggy knows well. It’s practically a global phenomenon, so he really shouldn’t be surprised it’s going on under the sea too. He studies the fish in his arms — a decent-sized haddock, it looks like.

“Guess I don’t have to worry about what to have for lunch today,” he muses. “But I’ll have to take it back to the house to prepare it. Want to come with?”

There’s a flicker of conflict on Matt’s face, but then his expression turns determined.

“Yeah, just, uh. Just let me...”

He’s very serious about it, but the way Matt flops around trying to pull himself out of the ocean makes Foggy bite his cheek to keep from laughing. Matt can be as suave and snarky and mysterious as he likes, there just isn’t a graceful way to wiggle that massive tail out of the shallows and onto dry land.

“Did, um, do you want some help?”

“I’m fine,” Matt insists, finally managing a handhold in the damp sand and dragging himself from the waves.

Foggy maybe gets a little distracted by the flexing of his arms. Just a little, though. After all, Foggy’s still carrying like, a four-pound fish in his arms — the smell alone is pretty ardor-dampening, and he’s gotta be careful not to slice himself on the fins.

The next problem is, of course, that once Matt’s got a couple of legs to stand on he’s also — as Pappy Nelson would say — buck-ass nude. Foggy offers him an elbow, remembering to narrate the action, but keeps his eyes firmly on the fish. It’s actually rather lucky that the beach is privately owned and pretty distant from anything. Foggy for one really wouldn’t want any nosy neighbors around to gawp at this scene.

The two of them make their way back to the beach house — slowly, as Matt gets used to walking again. Once inside, Foggy dumps the fish on the kitchen block and washes his hands quickly before leading Matt to the bedroom and grabbing him some clothes. They’re not exactly the same size or shape, but Foggy gathers a pair of sweatpants and a loose T-shirt and decides that’s good enough.

“You can wear these,” he offers, handing them over to Matt one at a time. “Here’s some pants, and a shirt.”

Setting the shirt on the bed, Matt steps into the sweatpants. He almost loses his balance doing it, and Foggy pretends he doesn’t notice. Once the pants are on and sitting loosely on his hips, Matt picks up the shirt again. He rubs the fabric between his fingers, then immediately discards it, a dismissive look on his face. Fair enough, Foggy supposes — a lifetime in the ocean probably predisposes a guy to being allergic to shirts. And since it’s just the two of them, it’s not like Matt has to worry about public scrutiny.

“Lunch?” Matt asks.

“Yup! Coming right up.”

They move back into the kitchen together, and Foggy rifles around for a good knife to use. The place is _way_ overstocked, especially since everything looks completely unused anyway, so it takes a little while to find what he’s looking for. But in the end, Foggy prevails over the beach house kitchen, finds a knife, and begins to prepare the haddock for human consumption. He’s just slicing into the fish’s belly when—

“What are you doing?” Matt asks, sounding hilariously concerned.

Pausing, Foggy glances between the knife in his hands and the baffled no-longer-fishy merman wearing his sweatpants.

“Gutting and cleaning the fish? To cook it?”

The look on Matt’s face flips from confused to grossed out.

“You’re going to _cook_ it?” he asks. “Burn it? With _fire_?”

“I mean I’m gonna try my best _not_ to burn it, and there’s no actual fire, just oven heat, so...” Foggy trails off as a thought occurs to him. “Wait. What did you _expect_ me to do with it?”

Matt shrugged.

“Humans eat fish without cooking it,” he said. “I know they do. They slice it up and eat it, or put it on rice.”

Right. Sushi. Sashimi. Though Foggy’s never heard of haddock sushi and it doesn’t really sound appetizing. More than that — and nevermind how Matt knows about sashimi and sushi in the first place — the implication is far more pressing.

“Then... Have you _never_ had cooked fish before? _Ever_?”

“I’ve never had it prepared _any_ human way. I don’t need to — unlike fragile little humans I can bite through scales,” Matt points out, flashing Foggy that mocking fanged smile again.

But Foggy just shakes his head, unaffected in the face of Matt’s complete and utter wrongness.

“Man, even if you _can_ eat it like that, cold raw scaly fish cannot compare to a home-cooked meal. That’s just science.”

Matt’s response is a huff of amusement. He’s skeptical and aloof — a haughty mer-prince, Foggy thinks fondly — but Foggy will win him over. Sure his family are butchers and not fishmongers or chefs, but Foggy’s been on fishing trips with Uncle Alfred enough times that he knows what he’s doing. Baked haddock is pretty simple, all told.

Well, it’s a little harder than usual with a pushy merman pouting about you ruining his precious haul by covering it in egg and cracker crumbs, but Foggy persists. In truth, Matt doesn’t raise a single hand to stop him, just grumps about it very loudly and obviously.

 _Poor thing, you’re so hard done by_ , Foggy thinks, amused.

With a last flourish — a drizzle of butter — Foggy pops the tray of fish into the preheated oven to bake.

It’s a relatively short cook time compared to the kinds of meats Foggy is used to at home, so he doesn’t bother sitting down to rest like he normally would, just gets to work cleaning up after himself. A few minutes in, the warm smell of baking fish begins to suffuse the air. Matt sniffs. He sniffs again. And then he’s pressed right up against Foggy’s back, chin on Foggy’s shoulder and inhaling like a kid in a bakery, slow deep gulps of air to really take in the scent. Foggy thinks very hard about how embarrassing it would be to cut himself on the knife he’s cleaning just because a shirtless, muscular fish-dude was cuddled up behind him for a completely innocent reason. Keeping that in mind, he’s able to safely finish washing his workstation and utensils even with Matt attached to his back like a limpet.

Then, finally, it’s time to take the food out of the oven. Foggy does actually have to elbow Matt out of the way a bit for that.

“It’s _hot_ , Matt, and you’re not even wearing a shirt.”

Donning a pair of way too fancy black oven mitts, Foggy retrieves the finished fish. After setting the pan on the counter he again has to stop Matt from burning himself — this time from just picking up a fish fillet and going to town. He very firmly informs Matt that while they might have no use for dishware under the ocean, he is absolutely not going to let him eat his first cooked meal directly out of the pan. It simply isn’t done. Ma Nelson would flip her lid.

Instead, Foggy sets out two place settings, nice and neat, and plops some fish on each one. There’s a little confusion with the eating utensils — Foggy has to restrain himself from making a dinglehopper joke — but Matt catches on quick. And then, when they’re both seated and Matt’s still battling the delicious smell to look offended about his gift being cooked, the merman takes his very first bite of human-style food. Foggy watches him intently, ignoring the fish on his own plate.

Matt chews the bite of fish in his mouth. His expression goes slack and wide-eyed. He keeps chewing.

“So?” Foggy prods. “What do you think?”

Matt swallows.

“I’ll bring you another fish tomorrow,” he says, very determined, which is about as rave a review as Foggy could probably ask for.

Of course, this means he spends the next week eating haddock for lunch — but he doesn’t regret it. Admittedly, after the sixth fish lunch in a row Foggy _does_ introduce Matt to the wonders of homemade mac and cheese, just so they can get a little variety in their diet. But to Foggy’s delight, even when Matt no longer has the excuse of bringing over a fish, he still comes up the beach to eat lunch together. With something to look forward to every day, thoughts of home — and work, and Jeannie’s death — finally begin to settle into manageable white noise instead of a tide trying to draw Foggy under.


	5. A Gift of Treasure

The kelp bandages are finally off Matt’s arm in the week after they start eating lunch together — the middle of Foggy’s fourth week of five at the beach house. The scar is dark against the pale skin of Matt’s bicep, and shaped a little like a starburst or a sun. What’s also noticeable about that day is the satchel Matt brings with him up from the ocean. It seems to be fashioned from the remains of one of those old cinching beach bags, with several plastic grocery bags woven together to make the strap. The ends of the cords are frayed, which is why, Foggy guesses, they’ve been knotted to either end of the plastic bag strap instead of functioning as the bag straps themselves.

“Brought something new?” Foggy asks, settling into the surf next to Matt.

He’s glad now that Marci stuffed his swim trunks into his suitcase when she came to drink with him the night before he headed out. He had been starting to feel a little bad about how much time Matt had to spend out of the water for them to hang out. Finding the trunks zipped in a side pocket while looking for more sunscreen had been a godsend. Like this, he’s been able to compromise and sit in the shallows with Matt — let the poor guy keep his tail.

“Yeah,” says Matt, shooting Foggy a smirk and picking absently at the braided grocery sacks. “It’s. I made something.”

He pulls open the satchel and digs around inside. When his hand emerges, Foggy can’t tell what he’s holding — it’s entirely encased in his closed fist. Then, stretching out his arm towards Foggy, Matt opens his fingers to reveal a handful of flawed, lopsided pearls. They’ve been threaded onto a piece of clear fishing line to make a necklace. Most of the pearls are white or cream colored, but there’s two black pearls, and one in the very center of the string that’s pinkish-purple.

“Is.” Foggy swallows, wets his lips. “Is this for me?”

It’s nothing that would ever reach a jewelry store. Not in a million years. Not a single one of the fifteen pearls is completely round, and the fishing line has no clasp so it’s just knotted in the back. But... It’s jewelry. It’s pearls, and they shimmer in the sunlight just as much as anything from a store would, still glistening with ocean water. Matt made it. It’s... It can’t mean what Foggy’s traitorous heart wants it to.

“Yeah,” Matt tells him, nudging his hand against Foggy’s arm until Foggy lifts the necklace from his grip.

Foggy has to swallow a couple of times before he can say anything.

“Thanks, Matt,” he manages to choke out, throat tight with emotion.

“Do.” Matt strokes damp fingers down his tail fin in what Foggy’s pretty sure is a self-soothing motion — his only sign of nerves. “Do you like it?”

Foggy doesn’t even have to think.

“Yeah, I love it.”

“You should put it on,” insists Matt.

Foggy agrees, easing the necklace over his head. It falls three or four inches past his collarbone. The pearls clatter a little as they settle, but don’t shift as much as he expects. It’s only when he lifts the necklace from his chest to take a closer look that he realizes Matt’s painstakingly tied tiny little knots in the fishing line at either end of each pearl to keep them in place.

“Did you find all these yourself?” Foggy wonders, studying them closer.

There’s a pattern, with the black pearls each the fourth one in from either end, and the white ones getting more yellow near the center of the necklace.

“Mm, no. Not all of them. The black and pink ones aren’t from around here,” Matt explains. “I had to give the trader a lot of fish for them. But I wanted it to be colorful for you. My, uh, my friend helped.”

Matt taps at his scar meaningfully. Right — the nurse friend. She’s cropped up in a lot of Matt’s stories about the shoal, though Foggy doesn’t really have a name for her. Even if Matt told him, he wouldn’t be able to pronounce it, and it seems too presumptuous to give her a human name without her permission. So for now, she’s ‘Matt’s nurse friend’. 

“That was nice of her.”

Matt nods, the beginning of a sweet smile blooming on his face.

“I’ve known her my whole life. Besides my dad, she was my first friend.”

Maybe his only friend, Foggy considers. Matt seems like kind of a loner, and not many people besides the nurse show up in his anecdotes more than once or twice.

“That’s cool,” Foggy tells him. “My first friend is actually my sworn nemesis.”

Matt gapes at him for about three seconds like a total goober, which Foggy is very proud of. Finally, Matt gets control of his face again.

“I, uh. Feel like there’s a story here?” he prods.

So prompted, Foggy delves into his theatrical and lifelong rivalry with Brett Mahoney, beginning with that time Brett pushed him down for stealing the good swing when they were four and ending with their divergent career paths. Matt at least seems mildly entertained by the whole thing.

“I feel like I understand a lot more about you now,” he concludes with a solemn tone and a teasing smirk.

Foggy is obligated to dunk him for that. Which still doesn’t make it a very intelligent thing to do. Never start a splash fight with someone who’s half fish, he learns. Especially not when you’re in range of their tail. It takes another two hours after his surrender for Foggy’s hair to dry, and even then he knows he’s going to have to rinse it in the bathroom to get all the salt out. But... It’s an enjoyable way to spend the day. He wouldn’t trade it for the world.

When they get hungry, Foggy treks back up to the beach house to put together a couple of sandwiches. He brings them back down in a basket — with a towel to dry off their hands and keep the bread from getting soggy. It’s just as entertaining and just as rewarding as it was the first time to watch Matt try something new. He’s intrigued by this new form of cheese — his previous experience being, Foggy’s learned, only the mac and cheese Foggy made him and the cubed cheese from fancy yacht parties he’s observed while patrolling the waters. He’s wary of the ham, but it’s straight from Nelson’s Meats so he comes around to it after a bite. And he is hilariously suspicious of lettuce.

“You’re sure this is meant to be eaten?” Matt demands at least twice over the course of the meal.

It’s not very nice to laugh, but Foggy does it anyway and earns himself another thorough splashing.

When Matt prepares to leave in the evening, he reaches out to stroke his hand over the nearly-forgotten pearls, cold fingers also brushing the skin of Foggy’s throat. It takes ten minutes after Matt dives beneath the waves for Foggy’s heartbeat to slow back to a normal pace. 

* * *

He finally gathers enough fortitude to call Marci that night. He’s been letting her know through text that yes he’s still alive and she doesn’t need to call the coast guard, but talking to Marci can be... She doesn’t use kid gloves, is the thing. She cares — way more than most people will ever know — but she’s practical in a way that means she sometimes pokes at emotional wounds to get them to heal. She’s a ‘rip off the band-aid’ kind of woman. And Foggy hasn’t felt ready to face that until now.

He holds his breath as he dials her number, free hand fidgeting with the cord of his new necklace. She picks up on the third ring with a honey-sweet voice.

“Foggy Bear, how nice of you to call.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, taking a seat on the bed, and there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth — he’s missed the sound of her voice. “I just... Needed a little time.”

Marci sighs.

“I know.”

They chat about stupid things — Marci seethes over the break room food thief, Foggy ponders whether he can steal the mattress from the beach house’s bed. Neither of them bring up Jeannie.

“How are things out there?” Marci asks eventually.

“Well... I maybe kind of... Met someone,” he mentions, because he wants to tell somebody and Marci is always the best choice for boy talk — or girl talk or just, whatever, crush talk.

“You met someone?” she demands. “Out there? You mean a squatter?”

Foggy laughs.

“No, no, a.” He wets his lips. “A fisherman.”

Technically a fish-man, but that’s definitely too weird to talk about and, well, Matt does catch fish so it’s not like he’s telling a _total_ lie. Marci’s voice goes even more skeptical.

“A fisherman. What, like some gnarled old... Lobster fisherman?”

“No, Marce, Jesus! He’s our age. And he’s...”

Foggy trails off, but Marci knows him too well not to be able to finish the sentence for herself.

“He’s hot. Oh my god, Foggy. You ran into a hot guy? You’re not going to fuck him to try and cure your trauma are you?” she asks, and doesn’t wait for an answer. “Because it doesn’t work. Not that I begrudge you if you want a little distraction but if you think Hot Fisherman is going to get you out of that therapy appointment, he won’t.”

Yeah, Foggy knows. Hell, he was the one who booked the appointment, and Marci knows it. But it’s her way to needle him about things — it’s how she shows she cares. Foggy shows he cares by flagrantly ignoring her fashion advice, cutting her off at the bar before she makes herself sick on cocktails, and occasionally hugging if she’s not feeling too touch-averse for it. That’s how they roll.

“Honestly, there’s not much I can do about the hotness anyway. I don’t even know if he’s into me,” Foggy admits. “Or guys.”

Or humans. Probably not humans.

“You’re an idiot, you know that right? You should just ask.”

Ha! No. Nope, Foggy is not going to do that.

The thing is, the humiliation would be bad enough coming from another human, but Foggy’s not sure he’d be able to handle a look of disgust on Matt’s face at the suggestion that he might be attracted to Foggy. Even if it’s because he’s not a merperson rather than because he’s a little squishy. Because Foggy likes Matt a lot, regardless of attraction and... He’s over his body image issues, yeah, but not _that_ over them.

“Foggy Bear,” Marci says impatiently, not content to settle for a bleak laugh as response.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” he relents.

“See that you do.”

The rest of the call is Marci dutifully and with great irritation passing on messages from everyone at home. The shop is doing fine, per Theo. The shop is doing terribly and he should quit L&Z when he gets back and come help, per his Ma. Anna is overreacting and the shop is fine, per his Pop. Bess sends her love. Brett sends his eternal hatred and also his well-wishes. The baristas at the coffee shop he and Marci frequent hope to see him again soon. Only one of the other new hires has asked after him because they’re all self-absorbed assholes — so says Marci.

“And you haven’t, you know, seen anything weird?” Foggy asks, when these messages have all been relayed. “At work? Everything's normal?”

Marci sighs.

“If you aren't going to put me in the loop you could at least try to act like you didn't— Ugh. Forget it. Nothing’s happened. I’m fine.”

Which is at least one load off Foggy’s mind. They say their goodbyes and hang up. As soon as he puts down his phone, Foggy’s hands drift back to the necklace Matt made him. He closes his eyes and rolls the pearls between his fingers, taking note of their imperfect shapes, the odd textures of them under his fingers — this one with circular ridges like ripples on a pond, that one smooth but elongated, another with a large divot. This must be how Matt picked them, he realizes with a startling warmth filling his chest. By what felt intriguing and interesting and pleasant.

Foggy leaves the necklace on while he gets ready for bed, and only takes it off as he goes to crawl under the covers, setting it reverently on the nightstand. Maybe it is a symbol of friendship, not a sign of romantic intent, but that’s ok. It’s still a gift. A gift for Foggy, from a guy straight out of a fairytale. That’s magical enough for anyone. He strokes the pearls one last time, yawning, then shifts onto his side and lets sleep whisk him away.


	6. A Hand in Yours

Foggy really needs to tell Matt he’s leaving soon. He knows that. He does. But the thought is so depressing he hasn’t had the guts to face it. Telling Matt they only have a couple of days left together will make it real. So he puts it off, and he puts it off, and suddenly it’s halfway through his last week at the beach house. He’s leaving in three days and he still hasn’t said a word about it.

He has to. He really has to. And that morning, three days before he has to leave, he stares himself in the mirror as he brushes his teeth and decides he’s going to do it _this_ morning. Right away, he promises as he slathers on sunscreen and puts on his swim trunks, prepared for another beach day sitting in the shallows. As soon as he sees Matt, he’ll tell him.

Which is clearly why the universe decides it would be completely hilarious for Matt to blindside him with a plan for the day before Foggy can even open his mouth to say hello.

* * *

“You want me to what?” questions Foggy, and his voice sounds faint and distant to his own ears.

“Swim with me,” Matt repeats. “Drift with me. Out in the open water.”

So. He isn’t hearing things.

“Oh. Yeah. That’s what I thought you said.”

“It’s perfectly safe.”

There are a million reasons that it is not actually perfectly safe. Human beings do not just swim out into the middle of the ocean, with no gear or boat or... That’s not a smart thing to do. It’s a great way to drown though.

“I...” Foggy swallows, tries to find a polite way to decline. “Matt, I don’t know...”

“Do you trust me?” Matt asks, holding out a hand.

“I...” Foggy reaches up absently to fiddle with the pearls around his neck, and the excuse hits him all at once. “But what about the necklace? If I went out there, I might lose it.”

Taking it off is an option already off the table — Matt’s dismay at the idea the one time Foggy had attempted to remove it in his presence had been pretty apparent, so Foggy’s been wearing it dawn to dusk. And it’s not like he wouldn’t actually be upset if he lost the necklace; Matt had made it for him, after all. It’s... It’s special.

“I can fix that,” Matt says, making ‘come here’ motions with his arms until Foggy kneels in the surf next to him.

Face still tilted to point somewhere over Foggy’s left shoulder and biting his lower lip, Matt reaches out his hands to find Foggy’s arms. He traces lightly up and over, leaving goosebumps in his wake, until his fingers meet at the nape of Foggy’s neck. There, he fiddles with the knots of the necklace — and suddenly it begins to get shorter, the pearls dragging up Foggy’s chest until they loosely circle his throat, too short to go over his head.

“It’s adjustable,” Foggy realizes aloud, running a thumb over the pearls again and trying to ignore the way Matt’s right hand is stroking through the soft hair at the base of his skull.

“Yeah,” agrees Matt with a coy little grin. “I learned those knots as a fry. So. Will you come?”

Foggy gets to his feet, nervous. Paces a few steps and stares out over the water. The ocean looks calm. It’s blue and peaceful. And it’s not like Foggy can’t swim. But...

“Foggy,” Matt says, gently, sweetly, a siren call. “I swear, I won’t let you drown. Do you trust me?”

It’s completely bonkers, but... He does. Foggy takes Matt’s hand, lets the merman draw him out away from the shore, into the open water. The tide rushes at him, first his knees, then his hips, then his chest, and then — and then he can’t touch the sand without putting his head under the surface. But Matt’s hand clasped tight around his own is enough to steady him as they swim further and further out from shore.

It’s slow going — and clumsy, on Foggy’s part — but they don’t stop until the beach is a distant brown line and the water is flat and unassuming all around them.

“Roll over onto your back,” Matt instructs, slowly easing his hand out of Foggy’s, “and we’ll float.”

There’s an instant of panic, but Foggy suppresses it sharply. Tries to imagine himself in a hotel pool as he rolls over onto his back and straightens himself out horizontally in the water. He doesn’t quite stay afloat, but before he can even start flailing, Matt’s left arm, strong and surprisingly warm amidst the cool silk of the water, lifts him back up, palm pressed flat to the small of Foggy’s back. Together they reach an equilibrium, and Foggy stares up at the cloudy blue sky as he floats on the surface of the ocean. Then, slowly, Matt stretches his right arm across his body, into the water between them to lace their fingers together. His grip is firm. Steady.

It’s just the two of them drifting through the water, and this far from shore the surge of the tide is minor, distant. It’s... Peaceful. Matt seems to think so too, based on the pleased sigh he breathes into the air.

They stay like that for a long, long while, and despite himself and the fact that he’s probably going to get sunburned, Foggy begins to fall asleep. His eyes get heavy, and he lets them slide closed. He feels safe, secure — Matt won’t let him drown. He promised.

Foggy is nearly out completely when something startles him awake again. He feels it in the water before he hears it — an approaching boat. Matt senses it too, by the way his hand tightens on Foggy’s, and glancing over at him reveals a face pale and tight with tension.

“They’re back.”

Matt doesn’t talk about humans. The only ones that would be back... Are the poachers.

“We should go back to shore, hide in the house,” Foggy says, shifting upright and twisting this way and that to try and find the beach again. “We have to keep you out of sight.”

But Matt shakes his head.

“There’s not enough time.”

He’s probably right — the boat isn’t moving very fast, but it’s got a motor and it’s definitely moving faster than Foggy can swim. Plus, they’re really far out.

“What do we do, then?” he asks.

Matt’s face shifts through four or five expressions before it settles on ‘determined’.

“We get you as close to the beach as we can. I’ve fought them before, I can do it again.”

Foggy, for one, doesn’t think coming out of the last fight with a gaping arm wound is exactly an encouraging history. But he doesn’t see what choice they have, either, so there’s little point in mentioning it. He just agrees and tries not to slow Matt down too badly as they swim for shore.

And actually, for a while it seems like the poachers might just pass them by. The boat is getting closer, sure, but it’s not aimed at them. It’s trawling. Looking for something — maybe more sharks, maybe Matt, but either way as long as they’re not spotted they might just be in the clear. Foggy and Matt get closer and closer to the beach, maybe about halfway back...

And then a shout goes up from the fishing boat. It turns their way and closes in on them, even as Foggy frantically pushes for the shallows with Matt at his side.

“You— you should go,” Foggy manages to puff out. “You’re a stronger swimmer. Get to shore and hide in the beach house. It’s you they’re looking for, not me.”

But Matt just tightens his grip on Foggy’s hand, practically towing him through the water.

“I won’t leave you. I won’t.”

Foggy’s torn between heart-melting admiration and concerned irritation. The boat is practically on top of them now.

“We’re not going to make it, Matt.”

“I know.”

Finally, Matt stops swimming for shore. And then, nudging Foggy behind him... He lets go. Has to, obviously, in order to put himself between Foggy and the poachers, but. The thought of how deep the water he’s treading might go has Foggy’s insides turning to ice. And even that’s not as terrifying as the way the sun glints off the sharpened tip of the poachers’ harpoon. It could be the same one that injured Matt before, and the thought makes Foggy’s belly squirm with nausea.

There’s no hesitation in Matt’s movements as he swims back and forth along the boat’s starboard side, tearing through the water like a circling shark. The men on the boat — three of them, only three — don’t fire the harpoon. They don’t even try to train it on Matt. Instead, they fling a huge net over the side, directly into his path. As it splashes down onto the surface, Matt swerves, tries to dodge, but one of his fins gets snagged.

“No! Matt!”

Foggy tries to paddle closer. The harpoon swings to point at him with a rusty creak. Matt’s head shoots up.

“Foggy, stay back!”

Struggling towards Foggy only gets Matt further tangled in the net. He can’t get loose. The way he thrashes reminds Foggy of a desperate, flopping fish and he hates it. Thankfully, Matt has something that a fish doesn’t: arms. He grips the netting and hauls, muscles bunching with the strain. Two of the poachers pulling the net up towards the side of the boat topple overboard and it goes slack. Matt slips loose and dives under the waves. If he wasn’t so busy treading water and trying not to think about the harpoon aimed at him, it’s the kind of thing that would’ve had Foggy cheering.

Matt bursts from the water again, arcing impossibly high through the air, and then splashes back below the surface. He does it again and again, in different places, scales flashing ruby red in the sunlight. Foggy’s not really sure what he’s doing... Until the last man still onboard aims the harpoon away from Foggy to try and follow Matt’s trajectory instead. The weapon is too far back onto the deck of the small fishing boat for Matt to grab or knock into the water. So Matt’s drawing the attention of the gunner. Probably with the intent that Foggy will escape, but like hell is that going to happen when Matt’s clearly the poachers’ target. He has to help.

But how?

And then his eyes catch on the net, still floating in the water. The two men knocked overboard are climbing back up the side of the boat, but they’re bedraggled and slow and they’re not taking the net with them. Foggy paddles towards it, grabs an end, and tugs. Although the net is heavy with water, Foggy manages to drag it over to the stern and firmly feeds it towards the boat’s motor. The rope is thick and durable — an ugly grinding noise fills the air. A chorus of swearing erupts from above.

_Take that assholes_ , Foggy thinks viciously.

But by this point, his arms and legs are getting heavy. As they falter, he flails, dips briefly below the water and finds himself sputtering a mouthful of seawater. And then another. Salt stings his eyes.

And then something slams into his side, hard, sending him spinning away under the waves. The boat? One of the flailing poachers? Matt? No way to know. But the pain turns Foggy’s thoughts fuzzy, and it takes him a few seconds to come back to himself. He squints, just barely opens his eyes, but the ocean is frantic all around him with movement. Direction loses meaning in the churning water. Foggy widens his eyes to try and find the light, the sun, the surface. But all he gets for his trouble is a murky mess of bubbles. Is the fight still going on above him? Is Matt winning or losing? Is he hurt? Foggy tried to focus on those worries instead of the fear that he’s going to drown. He can’t drown if he keeps holding his breath. He just won’t breathe in. He won’t. Even as his chest begins to ache with the strain he doesn’t breathe. He keeps pushing, keeps fighting towards where he thinks the surface might be.

But he already had the air knocked out of him by being hit. And he’s been under a long time. In the end, his body overrides his brain. He gasps for air — and gets only a lungful of seawater. It hurts. It hurts enough to make him forget the pain in his ribs. But there’s no way to cough it out, and the lack of air is making his head pound, and...

And then, right when Foggy thinks it’s over for him, strong arms loop around his chest and tug him upwards. They breach with a deafening splash. Even with his sight still fuzzy from all the saltwater in his eyes, it’s not hard to figure out his savior’s identity. Those gleaming red scales are pretty hard to miss.

“I’ve got you,” Matt’s saying frantically. “Foggy, Foggy, hold on, I’ve got you. I’m taking us back to shore. You’re ok, we’re safe now, you’re gonna be fine.”

Foggy’s not sure if his hearing goes funny then or if Matt dissolves into merspeak. Either way, he can’t understand, but he still tries to sputter out a response past his burning throat. Mostly he thinks he just ends up coughing seawater all over Matt’s chest.

The return to the house is a blur of red scales, seafoam, and stumbling through wet sand. When Foggy finally comes back to himself, he’s sitting on the kitchen tile wrapped in at least two bath towels, and Matt is pressing a glass of tap water into his hands. Matt’s managed to get the usual pair of sweatpants on, and hovers nervously as Foggy drinks.

“What happened?” Foggy rasps once he’s downed half the glass. “To the poachers?”

Matt’s grimace is vicious and fanged.

“I think they’ll be quite sunburnt by the time the coast guard finds them,” is all he says.

Foggy’s too worn out to push him for more detail. Matt didn’t kill the poachers and he seems confident they’re not going to burst down the door; that’s enough.

“Well. That was... An adventure,” Foggy mumbles, falling back on the words his mom uses to sum up complete disasters for lack of any other way to respond.

Matt flinches, and the anger around the corners of his mouth and eyes is replaced with a deep guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice breaking. “Foggy I’m so sorry. I just wanted...”

And Foggy thinks he understands. Matt just wanted to share the ocean with him. The peace of it, the vastness. It was supposed to have been a nice, safe, calm day together. Foggy can’t fix what happened — neither of them can — but maybe there is something he can do.

“It’s ok,” he says, because it is — they’re both safe now, the poachers are gone, neither of them is hurt. “Come on, you probably need to eat after that. I know I do.”

Foggy doesn’t have the energy for anything too intensive, so he just adds some carrots to the fancy can of chicken noodle soup he finds in the cupboard of the beach house’s kitchen. Matt’s no longer deeply suspicious of vegetables and other ‘human food’ but he does still get an entertainingly baffled look on his face when the bowl is set down in front of him. Foggy’s proud to see he handles his first encounter with liquid food with only minor hesitation.

The soup is filling and warming, dispelling the chill of the ocean. But Foggy’s drying hair is becoming crunchy with sea salt and he hates everything about that. So he takes a quick hot shower, towels off, and throws on a set of pjs.

Matt’s still sitting at the table when Foggy emerges from the bathroom, so Foggy settles across from him. He’s not sure what to say. For a couple minutes, they sit in silence. Matt fidgets, but makes no move to get up, to excuse himself and leave. So maybe, just maybe, Matt wants to stay. And maybe Foggy can give him a reason to. He clears his throat.

“Since today didn’t go as planned, do you want to um, lie down together? In the bed?”

He’s going too far. He really is. But... This is as close as he can get, to recreating the type of relaxation Matt had tried to give them both. As long as he thinks platonic thoughts and focuses on doing something nice for Matt, it’ll be ok. His heart will catch up to his brain eventually. No matter how human he looks like right now, Matt’s a merman, and he’s not romantically interested in humans.

“It’s not quite the ocean,” Foggy explains, awkward, “but it’s soft, and we can lie back like we were doing in the water.”

Matt’s throat bobs.

“You still want to?”

The waver in his voice makes Foggy want to bundle him in the world’s fluffiest blanket.

“Sure,” Foggy assures him. “If you do.”

Matt does, it turns out. Very much.

They lie down together, hands clasped. It’s not quite the same as drifting in the water, but it feels nice in its own way. Relaxing. It’s been a while since Foggy shared a bed with anyone. Here in the early dark, it’s as if they’re in their own little world.

Suddenly, Matt’s breathing changes, and he sits up, jerking their linked hands apart. Foggy sits up too, stifling a yawn.

“What? What is it?”

“Can I stay?” Matt asks, tentative, plucking at the drawstrings of his borrowed sweatpants. “Tonight? Here with you?”

“Yeah, of course,” says Foggy, because there’s no other answer he can give — no other answer he wants to.

The smile it earns him is bright and giddy, worlds away from Matt’s usual crooked, teasing flash of teeth. Still grinning, Matt flops back and snuggles down into the pillows again. He holds out a hand. Foggy’s heart squeezes in his chest, but he doesn’t hesitate to lie back down too and accept the upturned hand aimed his way.

After only a few minutes, Matt is dozing. But despite his exhaustion, even an hour later Foggy is awake, staring at the ceiling. Their hands are still interlaced. Matt’s face is smooth in sleep, and while he’s not snoring he does make these adorable little warbling noises. It’s pretty much perfect. Which just makes the twisting, guilty feeling in Foggy’s gut deepen.

Today’s only solidified the truth. Foggy doesn’t belong here. He can’t stay forever, no matter how much he wants to. He’s got to go back to work. He’s got to go back to his life. To his home, to his family, to Marci and Brett. And Matt’s got a mission of his own, doesn’t he? Those poachers will be back, and they won’t punch themselves, after all. Matt belongs in the ocean, keeping his shoal safe. He has to go home too. Matt could never be happy with Foggy, on land, even if he did somehow develop reciprocal feelings.

But, Foggy promises himself, he won’t forget about this, or Matt. He’ll keep it all tucked in his heart like a good luck charm.

It’s not every day you fall in love with a merman, after all.

There’s still two days left. Foggy will tell Matt about his departure date in the morning. Right away, so he can’t stall anymore. So he can say what he needs to, before it’s too late to say anything but goodbye. Matt deserves that much.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Fanart of] Fins and Fangs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23726176) by [Metaderivative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metaderivative/pseuds/Metaderivative)
  * [Fanart , MerMatt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882476) by [spinosaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinosaur/pseuds/spinosaur)




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